DaBearsBlog Officially Leaves ChicagoNow November 1st

After a substantial delay due to (mostly positive) circumstances, DaBearsBlog is leaving the confines of the Chicago Tribune and the ChicagoNow network effective November 1st 2013. Starting November 1st (and perhaps sooner), THE ONLY PLACE DABEARSBLOG WILL BE AVAILABLE IS DABEARSBLOG.COM. (Change your bookmarks or whatever people use now.)

This change finally happened because of you. I have heard every complaint you've raised about the experience at CN and all that prevented me from acting was time. As this season began I could no longer use time as an excuse. I made the time to make your experience better. I believe I do good work here. I believe I do unique work here. But I believe my efforts are meaningless if the experience of those who've stood by me for years is not an enjoyable one. I apologize for not making this move when I promised - 10 months ago.

We thank Jimmy Greenfield and the CN folks once again for their support over these last few years.

Above you will see our new logo. It is modeled after my favorite storefront in all of Chicago - the Green Mill Lounge. An image of the original is here.

For the next thirty days we'll remain here at ChicagoNow. Then we're off.

The level of analysis over at Bearsgoggleson is not good. Disquss boards tend to de-volve into a series of flip comments, kind of like Youtube comments (which is the textbook definition of how-to-ruin-a-community spirit). I tried going over there, but it's what I would classify as the level of fan best suited for the Tribune comments board. It was boring, like shouting in a big room full of stupid people.

So I do hope that if Jeff is choosing his own, home grown Wordpress site, he carefully considers the key aspect of this group vs. other groups - better, more educated football analysis. The response length should be allowed to be longer. Allow embedded videos and animated GIFs. Yes, we will get some vile GIFs, but overall it would be better. Allow those long term bloggers who have shown interest to guest blog, not personally interested in posting, but some guests would mix it up w/o losing the tenor of the place.

Jeff needs to make ends meet, so by all means, run banner ads. Precurse the audio with ads, there are ways to do that. Make money by hook or by crook, even have pass-thru one-click shopping offers. Just don't make the style sheet like this one, where the grey area is a joke how far over it's formatted.

I'd love to see Jeff get more tech going. A semi-produced "radio" show with Skype call-in callers on Wednesdays or something that can be done with tech now, just using headsets and voip software. I'm sure Jeff could produce with just a Mac a better show than Les Grobstein or the Doomer. Schedule guest call ins with Bears celebs. There is a market for listening to something besides Doug Buffone go apeshit nuts on people, although his post game rant on the caller who suggested the Bears sign Tebow was priceless.

So I wish him luck. If I had any advice for him, it would be to do the stuff he says he's going to do. If we're still here November 15th, I can see some blowback now that he's drawn the line in the sand.

In goal line situations, Bears brought in a big package. In the middle of the field, it was all Anderson, but inside the 20 they experimented with this jumbo set.

I saw Paea, Peeps, Woot and Collins get up and then saw Dinner get up from the pile and I was like Ted in Excellent Adventure whoa, then the replay and there he was - playing what anybody would have to call LB.

So, you know, Chandler Jones is a 3-down DE playing some awesome ball for the Pats, but we have a jumbo situation Sam linebacker. So there's that.

see, I see my explanation for last year's draft being so lucid and logical.

It was the diametric opposite to this year's, emery was told when he took the job lovie was the boss, lovie even got to interview emery.

I'd love to hear from those who don't agree... ahem... what the logical explanation is for one draft to be almost full of busts (save ashlon) and the next to be almost full of guys who are or will play this year? How can you explain that without the above?

2012 wasn't full of busts. it was full of ceiling players who just haven't reached their ceiling yet - mostly because of negative energy on this blog. listen:

brandon hardin was going to be mike brown 2.0. unfortunately, that's exactly what he proved himself to be. minus, ya know, the years of awesome play before injuries ruined him. also, he's white. and DBB peeps hate white safeties.

e-rod was a victim of circumstance. he would be tearing it up for us this year, but trestman doesn't trust hispanics. that's why he cut garza, too.

frey is on the team. he's like our revis.

and i didn't even know we drafted greg mccoy, so i can't anything there.

Penalties finally reared their ugly head and it negated 3 huge first downs I believe.

Also, Trestman has to take a page out of GB's playbook and on 3rd and 5 just run a damn unstoppable 6yd route and make the defense make a sick play on one of our beasts.

Jay had some disgusting, headshaking throws that seemed wide open but also had some beautiful ones that were negated or were dropped, etc. The playcalling and decision making was spot on but the execution was lacking. It does feel good to see the top 4 WR's on the team catching balls and TD's.

Marshall had 3 or 4 huge drops , Martellus dropped a back of the end zone beauty and Alshon had a fade that he had a chance to haul in that maybe could have been a couple inches higher and it was a TD.

I've never seen this kind of firepower on the field for the Bears.....ever.

He'd force it in places it doesn't belong. He'd stand around holding the ball down around his ankles. He'd still be trying to get rid of the ball as he's being sacked. The usual. He thinks he knows better than everyone.
He'd be exactly the same guy.

I think we ranked only 2nd behind Peyton on converting 3rd and longs going into the game. Not sure if that's still the case, but relying on converting 3rd and longs AND turnovers is not a sustainable winning philosophy.

These types of weeks happen to QBs. Obviously, Cutler was off. It's sort of like basketball. A player hits 80% on free throw, then every blue moon, he just can't hit a free throw.

Last year an elite QB threw 5 int to his arch-rival.

That arch-rival? The Falcons. The QB? None other than Brees.

That's right, just last year Brees chucked 5 Int in Hotlanta.

http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=321129001

He's also had other 4 Ints game, but that more aptly parallels Cutler's game this past Sun.

I'm not giving him a pass since I'm an infamous Cutler agnostic and these types of game are why, but I also don't have tunnel vision. I realize that good qbs have bad games.

I'm actually a lot more worried about our D and Specials because when those play poorly, it puts an absurd amount of pressure on the QB and O to be perfect. That's what happened last year with Brees. His D and Specials were crap, and he felt like he had to push.

I think that's what took place in that Lion's game, and if it continues, more performances like these might pop-up. Either way, we won't really find out who the "real" Jay is until the end of the season. We need to make the playoffs to find that out.

You know the funny thing was?For the 2nd week in a row Jay and the offense started on fire. He looked to be unstoppable. Then, again, shit breaks down and he falls apart in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.

I don't know if it's because the play are scripted or what, but the offense needs to find a modicum of consistency. I don't know how it's possible to go from looking unstoppable to looking incapable so quickly.

We have to remember that this is a whole new offensive system in place. Lots of moving parts. Consistency will be the hardest achievement for us (or any team). Other teams are struggling with that too. Look at Seattle. They looked like utter dog crap and should have lost. I'm not sure the Chiefs score more than 14 points a game on O. Even the Pats are struggling and they've had the same coach/qb/system for over a decade.

The only team right now that is kicking ass on a consistent basis is the Broncos.

I'm pretty sure we all agreed in PS that the first half of the season would be rocky and that we would just have to scrape by, and that's exactly what we're doing. If we beat the Aints, all this will be forgotten and the Lion's game will just be viewed as, "Well, division game at their place." If we lose to them, then it's time to make some changes (naturally, not at QB).

1 good game in the last 20 Homeslice. I reluctantly crept back onto the fence for Devin after the Minny game. Its looking more and more flukish with each return opportunity. I'm packing my shit and getting back on MB's wagon.

Whoa. I wanted Hester traded while he was worth something, still do. I'm not a fan of a guy who disrespected my team for two or more years - I just paid props to McCluster, who has moves. Devin's are gone.

it's funny that everyone kind of laughed and farted when the headlines read, "JWebb is sharing Bears' offensive secrets with the Vikings, but nod in agreement at the "Idonije telling Lions about Bears D" headlines.

I imagine, in my mind... that this.... is where GP eats every day: http://o.aolcdn.com/dims-global/dims3/GLOB/resize/550x600/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.mandatory.com/media/2013/09/pho-shizzle-vietnamese.jpg

Irish does not remember much. He sees Earl drop a ball yesterday (the first I remember in a long time), in a situation where it was better to go incomplete then get tackled outside the end zone.

Then of course, Earl get the TD on the next play. That one Irish won't remember. Just like the long catch over the middle when the Bears were down by 14 negated on what looked to be a phantom holding call (though maybe Mills did hold on that play, as the only replay I saw was Long owning Suh on that one).

We all have our hero things though. I like Hester too much.

Others like Mike Brown too much - a guy who could not stay on the field, and when he did benefited hugely from having the best pass coverage linebacker in the history of the NFL handling half his coverage responsibilities. You know, that guy called Urlacher.

I miss 2006 Urlacher. This defense is not very good. Do we miss over the hill Latch and Izzy that much? What else is it? Marinelli? I would think these guys still know how to rush the passer and own their gaps. Don't get it. Were gonna need 45next week

Okay okay Earl's not an issue - just breaking balls there - but let's not pretend the O revolves around him. Beast is the work-horse, even Alshon ahead of Earl. Earl had what, 6 passes before the Detroit game?

Earl did make a great catch for a score, there's no issue with Earl. But Beast is entitled to drop a few. I remember Roddy White leading the NFL in receptions and drops. It's part of the game.

The whole team looked lackluster yesterday. Hopefully it was just a hiccup. The DL and special teams concern me. The big coaching mistakes were activating Ford over Joe Anderson and having Paea and Collins switch spots.

The latest IPCC report from the UN for policymakers came out. They've been grossly wrong, but give them credit for doubling down.

So now they are 95% sure that humans are causing warming, up from 90% from their 2007 assessment. The last 15 years don't count, because it's just a "blip". But 30 and 50 year data is "relevant". Now these hand picked "experts" are almost positive that over half the warming since 1951 is man made. No explanation what caused the rest of the warming.

The average computer model used by the IPCC has exaggerated warming by over 400%!!!! 400%!!!!

These asshats have also made a claim that the Earth is at it's warmest in 1400 years. Over 80% of the Earth is uninhabited, and that's a generous estimate. It defies logic to know what the average temperature of the Earth was 50 years ago.

The Earth has been warming since the end of the Wisconsonian ice age 10,000 plus years ago. There were glaciers in Kansas at the time.

Is warming a bad thing? Food production has dramatically increased since the Green Revolution in the 1970's, with dramatically less land used for food production.

I'm against global government policies to reduce greenhouse gases because it's a giant waste of resources. The money would be more wisely spent on clean water and other conservation efforts.

The amount of carbon dioxide we produce compared to nature has got to be tiny. Once I heard about 'carbon taxes' and that cock-juggler Al Gore started getting all 'green' red flags went up. Just a way to squeeze more cash out of the sheep. If we didn't have global warming, we'd still be in the middle of an ice age. I like and snow and everything, but .....

I'm against the idea that CO2 is the driving force in global warming. It's a trace gas; most can't even define what a part per million is. A majority of the population has no idea that all of the planet's green stuff live off that 0.00039 percent. Ignorance is bliss; and most people are perfectly happy telling other people what to do.